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Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

theguardian.com

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Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#161

Post by Scoundreller »

free652 wrote: post #151
andy99 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they tried to coax me into using my local currency instead of GBP and hid a £20 spread I’m finding this more and more. Uber does it, and even Walgreens does it when I’m in the US and tap my card it suggests that I pay in my home currency. This seems to be a new vector companies have found for ripping off their customers.

This is pretty much everytime in Europe, not sure if the local terminals or the chase chip card always prompts me to pay with 1) USD 2) EURO

Depends where in Europe. I saw it all the time in Spain but never in France.

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#162

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

testing22321 wrote: post #73
hexbin010 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ryanair weren't just a bystander in this race to the bottom, they were primary drivers of creating it, along with Easyjet, undercutting competition and forcing everyone else to become a low cost carrier. They're a total success commercially you can't deny it, but my god what a horrible experience for everyone involved, passengers and staff alike

Like the comment you are replying to said - if you don’t want super cheap prices and super cheap service, fly with a more expensive carrier. Qantas, emirates, etc etc. You get what you pay for .

With the expensive carriers, you nowadays get super cheap service but not the price...

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#163

Post by mikkupikku »

amiga386 wrote: post #43
onli wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to be built into the credit card terminals. So it's a visa thing, not on the shop. I had that with very small shops in non-touristy areas of Mexico where it was absolutely clear to not be a scam attempts by the shops owner. They had no idea what the terminal asked.

On the other hand, almost every merchant and waiter in Spain told me, when handing me the card terminal, to select "local currency" (decline the first swindle attempt) then "don't convert" (decline the second swindle attempt). There's obviously some required workflow where they must pass the terminal to the customer, but they are wise to the payment gateway's trick to extract additional value from the transaction. Th…

> Either you were their first foreigner

He could have merely been the first to do the math and bring it up. I could easily see most tourists overlooking this sort of thing, or not mentioning it because they're already accustomed to it.

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#164

Post by newppc »

arethuza wrote: post #99
dcminter wrote: post #4

"O’Leary accused the travel agent industry of scamming and ripping off unsuspecting consumers by charging extra fees and markups on ticket prices." That is ... pretty rich. A couple of years ago I was going to go see my brother in the UK who lived near Stansted. As such Ryanair would have been the most convenient airline. The shere number of dark patterns I encountered trying to book the ticket was such that when I g…

Ryanair used to do some things that were quite remarkably devious - the option to not by travel insurance was in the middle of drop-down list of countries! To make sure I had remembered that correctly I looked it up and here is a description of it: https://www.insurancetimes.co.uk/ryanair-to-change-hidden-tr... NB I've travelled with Ryanair quite a lot and actually don't mind the actual flights but it is wise to man…

Yea quite devious, in a weird way I suppose the dark patterns also serve as an IQ test that favors younger tech-literates who are familiar with web patterns and are also on a budget (though not all).

I used Ryanair a lot while studying abroad in Europe and the €20 flights were real if you jumped through the hoops, which was quite magical.

I once had a flight booked to Paris, but it landed in an airport 2 hours outside of Paris and the train/bus would’ve been 2x the flight cost, so being short of money I just didn’t take the trip and lost €20 :)

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#165

Post by xp84 »

doikor wrote: post #10
andy99 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they tried to coax me into using my local currency instead of GBP and hid a £20 spread I’m finding this more and more. Uber does it, and even Walgreens does it when I’m in the US and tap my card it suggests that I pay in my home currency. This seems to be a new vector companies have found for ripping off their customers.

This isn't anything new though. Been like that for the last 15 years at least. Always pay in the local currency (your bank/visa/mastercard will give you a better rate then the merchant)

Very true, but the other half is to ensure you don’t use a card with a foreign transaction fee, which will cost you 3-4%. There are free cards like the Amazon Prime Visa that don’t have it, but that fee is very common.

The other thing I hate to see is people using the currency conversion desks at airports, or buying foreign currency from their banks in advance of trips. They give you awful rates.

Assuming you’re traveling to a civilized country, just stick your card in an ATM when you land and pull out the cash you need. Good banks don’t even charge their own ATM fee, so your total cost is the $3-4 that the ATM owner charges, and you get a pretty fair rate.

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#166

Post by arethuza »

tyre wrote: post #155
arethuza wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ryanair used to do some things that were quite remarkably devious - the option to not by travel insurance was in the middle of drop-down list of countries! To make sure I had remembered that correctly I looked it up and here is a description of it: https://www.insurancetimes.co.uk/ryanair-to-change-hidden-tr... NB I've travelled with Ryanair quite a lot and actually don't mind the actual flights but it is wise to man…

I remember when they were seeking approval to provide blow jobs on flights (free in business class iirc.) The only thing that they won’t up charge. They even tried to get approval to charge for bathroom access. Wild company, but they are entirely on brand. To be fair, consumers have driven airlines this way. They’ve shown that they’ll buy based almost entirely on price and suffer any amount of agony in exchange. I ju…

The advantage of Ryanair and a lot of the other low cost carriers is that they do a lot of point to point flights between regional hubs - for example we flew Edinburgh to Marrakesh with them a few years back which was fine and I think they were the only airline offering direct flights. Going via Heathrow, Gatwick or CDG would have been a nightmare and we were only going for a few days.

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#167

Post by lentil_soup »

What's going on on this thread? why are so many people defending Ryanair? I understand it's cheap and you get what you pay for but to defend this race to the bottom and scammy UX is so weird. Why do we need to simp for companies like this? It's great to have cheap options but we can also expect more from life. I'm sure we all here know how to navigate the dark patterns on the website but millions of people don't, so we just don't care anymore? Do we just shrug and go "as long as I get a cheap flight"?

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#168

Post by nico »

dcminter wrote: post #4

"O’Leary accused the travel agent industry of scamming and ripping off unsuspecting consumers by charging extra fees and markups on ticket prices." That is ... pretty rich. A couple of years ago I was going to go see my brother in the UK who lived near Stansted. As such Ryanair would have been the most convenient airline. The shere number of dark patterns I encountered trying to book the ticket was such that when I g…

> coax me into using my local currency instead of GBP and hid a £20 spread in the exchange rate

BoFA does this for international wires as well. And I suspect a lot of companies do this to their international customers too. Unfortunately, it’s become pretty standard

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#169

Post by yunohn »

hs586 wrote: post #57

I have found myself to be the only person in many conversations defending Ryanair. People complain about legroom, everything being a paid add-ons, you name it. The key is to treat it like a bus that takes you from A to B, sometimes cheaper than a bus, not some sort of luxury experience. The times when flying was luxury is over. And I benefitted from it greatly as a student, so have many shown by Ryanair's passenger n…

Your devils advocate position appears to be in direct opposition to multiple court rulings that forced RyanAir to acknowledge and remove dark patterns. And thus, may not be an opinion that others share for pretty obvious reasons?

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#170

Post by anonymousDan »

I will always fly Ryanair ahead of other low cost carriers in Europe as unlike easyJet for example they don't overbook. The most painful experience I've had was to arrive at an airport with a young family and get all the way to the easyJet flight gate to be told the flight is overbooked. And unlike the US where this starts an auction it's basically tough luck. Should be outright fraud in my opinion.
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